Prarastojo rojaus mitas Antano Škėmos apysakoje „Saulėtos dienos“
The Myth of Paradise Lost in Antanas Škėma’s Sequence Novellas “Sunny Days”

Summary/Abstract: Antanas Škėma was the strongest opponent of “utopian nostalgia” in Lithuanian literature. However, in spite of his own declarations, his Oeuvre is related to some romantic topics. One of the most important ideational and structural centres in Škėma’s writing is the myth of paradise lost. For him, the nature of Ukraine, emerging as an alternative to the historical reality, is such an utopian and mythological space. The article aims at revealing the interaction between the level of figures and the deep semantic structure in sequence novellas Sunny Days (1952). Reconstructing events of his far away childhood, Škėma not only creates them anew but also sees them from the nihilistic tragic perspective, which is characteristic of the late twentieth century. The look that reveals the absurdity of history turns the nostalgia of childhood into the tragedy of hopeless modern man. The end of the story expresses a farewell to Romantic ideals – love and mythological beings among them. Images of the garden, the tree (fruitier), the river, and the angel are considered to be representations of existential meanings, i.e. the eternity, human being, death, virtual reality. The article concludes that Škėma’s point of view could be defined as nostalgic tragedy. His poetics is labeled neo-mythologism.

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